An automated teller machine (ATM) regarding a financial service is an automated device which is capable of assisting a basic financial service such as a receipt and payment without a bank clerk at any place and any time. The ATM is constructed such that a financial transaction such as a payment or a deposition of the cash or cheque can be automatically performed through a medium such as a card or a bankbook. Accordingly, the bank clerk as well as the customer can handle easily the ATM. The ATM, which is mostly installed in a store such as a department store, a supermarket and the like can be operated after completing a business hours of the bank without an operator or manager. In view of the above, the utilization of the ATM has been increased gradually, and an efficiency of the ATM together with the efficient disposition and a rationalization of employees becomes an important task in the financial institutions such as a bank. In particular, the ATM is conceived for the customer to deposit or draw easily and rapidly a cheque without resort to the intervention of a bank window.
Hereinafter, a process for recognizing a cheque is illustrated with reference to the drawings. FIGS. 1A and 1B are schematic views showing cheques on which magnetic ink characters are printed, respectively; and FIGS. 2A to 2D are schematic views illustrating that the cheques are introduced in four introduction directions which differ from one another, respectively.
As shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B, cheques C1 and C2 have magnetic ink characters N1 and N2 printed on lower portions of front surfaces thereof which represent the cheque's own information such as a cheque number, a serial number and the like. Also, the cheques C1 and C2 have the various sizes corresponding to a standard in all countries of the world. In general, the magnetic ink characters N1 and N2 are spaced apart from lower ends of the cheques C1 and C2 by certain distances H1 and H2, respectively, depending on the size of the cheques.
The ATM is provided with a cheque recognition device installed therein for recognizing the information of the magnetic ink character printed on the cheque to distinguish an abnormal cheque having the ambiguous information and a forged cheque from a normal cheque. In general, the recognition of the magnetic ink character may be achieved by an optical character recognition (OCR) and a magnetic ink character recognition (MICR).
The optical character recognition (OCR) utilizes a contact image sensor (CIS) which scans the cheque to obtain an image of the cheque. In the OCR, a light is irradiated on a magnetic ink character on a front surface of the cheque, and an image of the magnetic ink character is obtained from a light reflected from the magnetic ink character. The magnetic ink character image is then compared with a reference character image stored in a memory device to recognize the magnetic ink character printed on the cheque.
A magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) employs a character recognition device utilizing a magnetized component of a magnetic ink character. The character recognition device is provided with a magnetic unit for magnetizing a magnetic ink printed on a cheque and a magnetic head for recognizing the information of the magnetized magnetic ink. In the character recognition device, the cheque introduced by the user is passed sequentially through the magnetic unit and the magnetic head so that the cheque is recognized.
As described above, after performing the optical character recognition (OCR) process or the magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) process, it is determined whether to receive normally the cheque or to reject the cheque, and an endorsement to the cheque is then carried out. The endorsement means that the rights relating to the cheque are transferred from the user to the bank. Examples of items endorsed include a depositing date, a depositing amount and bank information.
In a cheque recognition device of a prior art, an OCR device or an MICR device is provided at only one side, e.g., a right side of a cheque moving path, in order to recognize the magnetic character on the cheque. Therefore, it is possible to recognize only a cheque introduced in a state where a back surface of the cheque is directed to a bottom and a lower end of the cheque is directed to the right side of the cheque moving path (see FIG. 2A). However, if the cheque is introduced in a state where a back surface of the cheque is directed to a bottom, but a lower end of the cheque is directed to an opposite side to the right side (see FIG. 2B); in a state where a front surface of the cheque is directed to a bottom and a lower end of the cheque is directed to the right side (see FIG. 2C); and in a state where a front surface of the cheque is directed to a bottom and a lower end of the cheque is directed to an opposite side to the right side (see FIG. 2D), it is impossible to recognize the magnetic ink character, which results in that a receipt of the cheque is rejected. In order to avoid the above inconvenience, the user should pay close attention to introduce the cheque.
In addition, in a case where separate cheques have different sizes, it is difficult for the check recognition device to exactly recognize the magnetic ink characters printed on the cheques since the distances H1 and H2 are different from one another. Also, if the cheques are introduced by the bundle, the user should strive to align exactly the direction of all the cheques.